You know that scene in elf when will ferrel is listing off the main food groups of the elves? Candy, candy canes, candy corn and syrup. For me.. It would have to be cheese of all kind. My great grandma always said given the choice of chocolate or cheese she would always choose cheese and […]

i have once again been a canning queen at my house prepping all the fruit and veggies to enjoy all winter long. so far i’ve made strawberry jam, cherry pie filling, cherry bbq sauce and cherry salsa. with every recipe there is bound to be a bit of extra produce so i try to find […]

Growing up we never had beets, brussels or radish in our house. We were very traditional vegetables eaters (broccoli, beans, cauliflower etc). As an adult i’ve been eating all the beets I can get my hands on. I love them pickled on salads, roasted beats mixed in with potatoes, steamed beats with a bit of […]

we still have one or two weeks left of strawberry season here in michigan but i have made myself vow no more canning jam. i have enough to last me the next three years. canning is like therapy to me. i finished my jam after otto had gone to bed and sitting at my kitchen […]

i’ll admit it yet again, i was one of those gals who hated mushrooms without even trying them. i would pick mushroom out of my lasagna and turn up my nose to them at the farmers markets. but then that day where we had them on a road side stand pizza place in napa… my […]

a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend a retreat held at the Leland lodge in northern Michigan. it was with a few other women from michigan who work in social media and it was a chance for us to escape and chat about the industry. i mean, you really can’t beat hanging […]

you know that feeling when you get back from vacation and your only objective the next morning is to find underwear that doesn’t feel tight? like everything on me is tight right now. after a week of driving around banff, canada and wine country, california i’m going to have to be off of bread for […]

for the past 31 years of my life i have been ordering food without mushrooms. i don’t like them. or at least i thought. turns out i just like GOOD mushrooms. when we were in california a few years ago we stopped at a food truck that was serving morel mushroom pizzas. we sat by […]

are you the type of person who puts fruit on your salad? i have never been able to do that. something about the sweetness in my lettuce. nope. i like dried fruit but not fresh fruit on my salads. I kind of thought the same thing about vegetables in general until i whipped up this […]

one of the first vegetables to pop up for the spring and summer michigan farmers markets is asparagus. asparagus signals the start to summer and grows abundantly during the last few weeks of spring. We have been eating asparagus almost every night with dinner because right now it’s around $3/lb. some of my favorite ways […]

i’ve been reading about ramps for years and the first time i had them they were rolled into homemade butter from the local epicurean in downtown grand rapids. they are so crisp and garlicky they make everything just pop. last year on our way home from northern michigan we stopped and grab some from the […]

do you ever have a meal that you just remember for years and years? i have had a few of them but they are rare. one was on a business trip in dallas texas to a restaurant called smoke. which tragically closed last year due to a sale of the building. i had the most […]